Trivia / Lady Bird

• Billing Displacement: Beanie Feldstein gets billed below both Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet even though she has a much larger role and more consistent presence throughout the film than either.
• Breakthrough Hit: The film was Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut^note She had co-directed previously and became a box office success and critical darling, winning several big-name awards (including two Golden Globes) and receiving further big-name nominations (among them five Oscars, including Best Director for Gerwig).
• Creator Provincialism: Greta Gerwig was born and raised in Sacramento, where the film is set.
• Dawson Casting: All four of the young stars are playing seniors in high school, so their characters are probably around seventeen or eighteen. Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) is 23; Beanie Feldstein (Julie) is the oldest at 24; Lucas Hedges (Danny) is the youngest at 21, and Timothee Chalamet (Kyle) is 22.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Saoirse Ronan dyed her hair red for the role.
• Enforced Method Acting: Greta Gerwig banned smartphones from the set, because the film was set in the early 2000s.
• Fake American: Irish actress Saoirse Ronan plays the titular character, a teenage American girl. Downplayed where Saoirse was born in America but grew up in Ireland.
• Method Acting: Greta Gerwig encouraged this, suggesting that the actors make up personal details about their characters and keep them from her.
• Production Posse: Greta Gerwig would direct Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet in Little Women (2019) as well.
• The Red Stapler: The Sacramento locations used for the film became popular tourist attractions after the movie's success.
• Referenced by...: In making Turning Red, director Domee Shi has stated that the film's coming-of-age aspect was inspired by this film and others like it.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The film is set in the early 2000s because Greta Gerwig didn't think she could make a story revolving around teenagers who were "obsessed with their smartphones".
• Throw It In!:
  • The acne on Saoirse Ronan's face isn't makeup; her normally-clear skin underwent several breakouts due to high stress and lack of sleep leading up to the filming. The makeup artists and Greta Gerwig realized that, since she was playing a teenager, it made more sense for her to have acne, and thus decided not to conceal it.
  • Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein wore the same color of nail polish by pure coincidence in the early scenes. They then decided that the characters would match their nails for the whole movie.
• Tuckerization: Lady Bird's given name is Christine, after Greta Gerwig's mother.
• Typecasting: Lucas Hedges plays a boy confused about his sexuality in Boy Erased as well.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Noah Baumbach loved the script and was keen to direct, but Greta Gerwig ultimately decided to do it herself.
  • Greta Gerwig really wanted to shoot on Super 16 film, but had to shoot digitally due to budget constraints. In post-production, the footage was edited to add digital film grain, so that it would resemble a photograph.
  • Lucas Hedges was offered either of the male roles, and chose to be Danny.
• Working Title: Mothers & Daughters.
• Write What You Know: The movie is loosely inspired by Greta Gerwig's adolescent years. She's stated that nothing in the film was a literal experience, but has a "core of truth that resonates with what I know". For instance, she affirms that she was the complete opposite of Lady Bird herself in adolescence, and "not at all rebellious".